Review: A Trick of the Light

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Louise Penny's novels are excellent as individual novels, but reading the series really shows what a wonderful storyteller she is. Because she has populated her series with a fairly limited universe of characters, and focused on a different person's story in each novel, you have an opportunity to look at the experiences of the various people from different points in time and through various people's eyes. It adds a lot of insight and richness to the books that mystery series don't usually have.
This particular novel was an especially good one, positioning a variety of triads in support and opposition to each other. The struggles that Jean Guy Beauvoir is having are both compelling and concerning. There is a lot about AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) in this story and I found the peek into that world very interesting. As usual for Penny, this novel was full of small lines that hit all the right notes.

"But those words were swallowed too. Returned to the dark to join all the other unsaid things."